USS Matanikau

An FM-2 Wildcat fighter situated on the aircraft catapult preparing to take off, 27 July 1944.

An aerial top-down photograph of the flight deck of Matanikau, circa 1944.

A TBM Avenger torpedo bomber taxis to the port aircraft catapult of Matanikau during training operations. This photograph was taken sometime between October 1944 and July 1945, during which Matanikau was conducting pilot qualifications.

Upon being commissioned, Matanikau underwent a shakedown cruise down the West Coast to San Diego, arriving on 25 July. She then underwent a transport mission, taking on 191 passengers and 56 aircraft. She departed on 1 August, bound for the South Pacific. She stopped at Espiritu Santo and Finschhafen, before arriving at Manus Island on 23 August. There, she discharged the rest of her cargo, and took on a load of 112 passengers and 41 damaged aircraft, ferrying them back to the West Coast. She arrived back at San Diego on 19 September. This transport mission would be the farthest west that she would ever sail during the course of the war. On 14 August, she took on Composite Squadron 93 (VC-93), and began pilot qualifications, serving as a training carrier off the California coast. She continued these duties for eight months, qualifying an impressive amount of aviators. Between January and June 1945, 1,332 pilots earned their qualifications onboard Matanikau, and 12,762 landings were conducted on her flight deck during this period. For example, on 25 May 1945, Marine Torpedo Bombing Squadrons 454 and 321 (CVS-454 and CVS-321) made 602 landings throughout the day. During her period as a training carrier, Captain Francis Benedict Johnson took over command of the vessel, a position that he would hold for the rest of the war.[9]

She finished her duties as a training carrier, and departed San Diego on 28 July, yet again as a transport carrier, with 158 personnel and 68 aircraft being transported to the Marshall Islands. She arrived at Roi-Namur on 10 August, where she unloaded her cargo. She then reported to Pearl Harbor on 16 August. Whilst in Hawaii, news of the Japanese surrender broke. On 31 August, she departed Pearl Harbor, bound for the West Pacific, where she would support U.S. forces in their Occupation of Japan. She was assigned to the Ninth Fleet, and arrived at Ōminato Guard District on 11 September. She operated off the west coast of Japan, covering landings by U.S. forces, including the Eighth Army at Aomori on 25 September. Following the landings, she steamed south, and departed Tokyo Bay on 30 September, making stops at Guam and Pearl Harbor, before arriving back at San Francisco on 23 October.[9]

At San Francisco, she joined the Operation Magic Carpet fleet, which repatriated U.S. servicemen from around the Pacific. She left the West Coast on 3 November, and steamed for Saipan, where she embarked more than a thousand personnel. She returned to California on 19 November, before making another run to the Marshalls between 21 November and 5 December. On 11 December, she once again departed, this time for the Marianas Islands, and as part of an operation independent of Operation Magic Carpet. She arrived at Guam on 27 December, where she took on a load of 795 troops of the 3rd Marine Division, and dropped them off at the Taku Forts, near Tianjin. There, the marines served in an advisory role, supporting the Kuomintang Republic of China in the Chinese Civil War.[9]

She left for the United States on 9 January 1946, and returned to port in San Diego on 29 January. She departed for Tacoma, Washington on 1 February, arriving on the 5th for inactivation. There, she was moored for the next eight months, before being decommissioned on 11 October. She was mothballed as part of the Pacific Reserve Fleet, and she was reclassified as an escort helicopter aircraft carrier, CVHE-101 on 15 June 1955. She was reclassified as an aircraft ferry with the designation of AKV-36 on 7 May 1959. She was struck from the Navy list on 1 April 1960 and she was sold on 27 July 1960 to Jacq. Pierot, Jr. & Sons, New York for scrapping.[9]